The curtain parted and Sharni and Gage stepped through. Sharni looked remarkably peachy; her cheek was still dark with the sins of the night before, but the rest of her skin had returned to its usual country-girl glow, as though she was ready to ride a bronco bareback or take centre stage at a debutante ball, as she settled in beside Lou. Coffee was a remarkable drug.
Gage was even more irritatingly together. He strode into the little space, handed Lou a coffee, dropped a quick kiss on Skye’s upturned cheek and sat in the chair closest to the bed. ‘How you feeling, firecracker?’ he said, gesturing to the coffee. ‘Sorry, Edie told me no stimulants for you; I wasn’t being mean.’ He gave Lou’s mum a smile that would have melted the heart of a snow witch, full of genuine concern and clear affection. But Lou’s heart must have been made of pure glacier, because all she wanted to do as she saw the tender exchange was scream a litany of crimes at her mother so the man who had kissed her so comprehensively the night before could hear all about them.
Skye pouted and Lou watched her turn on her whole routine for Gage. She nodded bravely as big blue eyes filled with tears and her hand rose up to extract a tissue delicately from the box on the bedside table. The vulnerable eye-wiping routine that ensued was so choreographed it belonged in Gone with the Wind. Lou reminded herself that while Gage had attended very little school, he was not stupid, and would never fall for such a blatant doing-over. But strangely, as she watched, he seemed to dissolve on the spot. He dragged his chair closer and patted Skye’s hair, changing his voice from its usual concise, gravelly style, to all honey and warmth. ‘Hey now, sweetie, I’m sure it’s all going to be okay. Lou Lou’s here now, and you know there was never any problem Lou couldn’t fix. And we’re here too. Me and …’ He paused and swallowed hard. ‘And Dad. We’ll see you right.’ He ran his hands through his hair. ‘If you need a place to stay while you get things sorted, well, you know we’ll happily put you up. Plenty of room at home.’
Skye made a strangled noise of appreciation low in her throat that almost made Lou vomit, but that seemed to be just the response Gage was after. Lou elbowed Sharni hard in the side. She wasn’t looking for any particular action from Sharni, just a way to vent her frustration.
But Sharni jumped to attention. ‘Well, great to see you’re up and about, Mrs Samuels,’ she said. ‘I might take Lou to get some food while we plan next steps, hey? I think at this point she needs to eat.’ Sharni dragged Lou to her feet and took her arm. ‘Anything we can get you?’ She shot Skye a sweet look, but the air was thick with her true intent.
And Skye wasn’t buying. ‘No thank you, Sharni,’ she sniffed. ‘I think I just need some rest.’ She grabbed for Gage’s muscular forearm. ‘Thank you, sweetheart, for your concern and your kind words. You and your dear father have been so wonderful to me these last few months.’ She turned doleful eyes on Lou and Sharni, and the implication was lost on neither of them.
Gage stood. Every time he got vertical, Lou was reminded of the sheer size and power of him. She often thought that if she really existed, it was mostly in her brain – the place she had spent most of her childhood retreating to; the place she lived most of her professional life; the place she ran back to when the world seemed too harsh or too pathetic. Gage, on the other hand, was like intelligent flesh. The beauty and proportion with which he had been constructed; the grace of his stance and gestures; the economy of his movement – it was like watching a master artist do his thing.
‘I’ll take you where you need to go, ladies,’ Gage said.
‘Huh?’ Sharni’s dull response made Lou realise she too had been hypnotised by Gage’s physical wow factor. Lou elbowed her again, just because.
‘Later, Mum,’ she said as sweetly as she could manage as she left the room. ‘I’ll be back once we’ve worked a few things out.’ ‘I can’t,’ Lou said, even more forcefully this time, in case they hadn’t heard her.
‘Why not?’ Gage was leaning against a thick timber post, his back to the wide main street, while Lou and Sharni sprawled on the easy chairs at the low table on the veranda. Crises always brought out the comfort eater in Lou, and today it was Mrs Perrott’s macaroni and cheese and a serving of apple pie that had laid her low. Sharni was lolling around in the afterglow of a particularly nasty-looking Chiko Roll, followed quickly by two serves of steamed pudding with custard.
‘You have to eat through it,’ Sharni had explained to Lou as they ordered.
Maybe she was right. The headache was almost gone. But being this full of fat and sugar sure made it hard to disagree with a commonsense argument from a six-foot-something babe in a pair of very tight jeans. The whole effect was simply far too distracting.
Gage had more to say. ‘I’m not asking you to shack up with me, Lou, heaven forbid.’ He rolled his eyes at her.
Oh yeah, heaven forbid.
Gage pulled away from the post and returned to the chairs Lou and Sharni were sprawled on. Lou had to tip her head back to see his face. ‘There just aren’t that many options. Your mum’s place is cactus; Sharni’s place is too crowded now that Dessie and the kids are staying there, and –’
But Gage was interrupted by a nasal voice. ‘Well, hello young people.’ Mary Moriarty had climbed the low stairs, her arms full of shopping from the grocery store down the road. She turned her gaze on Lou. ‘I just heard about your mum, darl. She okay?’
Lou nodded, not trusting her voice not to scream or say things the town really didn’t need to hear, as it doubtless would if she said them to Mary Moriarty.
‘Plenty of spare room at the hotel. I guess you’ll be needing to stay a while now, until things get sorted.’
Lou’s head filled with the horrors of spending another night at the Welcome Inn.
Mary patted her arm in mistaken solidarity. ‘I understand, lovey,’ she said. ‘Hard times.’ And in a first-ever display of tact, she pushed on towards the cafe.
‘As I was about to say,’ Gage drawled, gesturing at Mary’s back as she pushed through the swing doors to the cafe, ‘I’m damned sure you don’t want to stay at the Welcome Inn another night.’ He turned away from Lou and Sharni and paced the wide veranda, giving them an unimpeded view of his fine back encased in yet another close-fitting white T-shirt and his even finer arse.
He swung back. ‘Skye can stay in the house. And you can take the guesthouse for a few days.’ He shrugged. ‘Or however long you need to get things sorted.’
‘I could stay with Dad,’ Lou squeaked.
‘Honey,’ Sharni chastised her gently. ‘You know he lives at the office, right?’
‘He has a house.’
‘No,’ Sharni insisted. ‘He has a room, at Mabel’s. And it’s filled to the brim with –’ She looked stricken and Lou realised she was trying hard not to say ‘his crazy shit’.
It was true Gary had always been kind of eccentric. He liked to collect things. If he was American, he’d be on Hoarders. In Stone Mountain, he was the mayor.
‘He sleeps on the couch in his office, you know that,’ Sharni continued, patting Lou’s arm. ‘Gage’s place is just across the creek from Mum and Dad’s,’ she whispered. ‘So I’d be close. I’ll stay as long as you need me.’
Lou knew it was true. The problem with Gage Westin, the problem there had always been with Gage Westin, was that he was Sharni’s damn neighbour. Just over the creek, all through their childhood. Swimming in the same waterhole, shirtless and Tarzan-like on the rope swing. Lying around in the sun. Riding in his boardshorts on a variety of horses, motorcycles and utilities, always tantalisingly close. Bad, bad Gage Westin – like a beacon of teenage debauchery. To Sharni, he was just like a wild brother. To Lou, he’d always been dangerous and unobtainable. The boy who’d hung with wild girls. The boy who’d called out to them from the trees at the waterhole, daring them to take their bikini tops off. An enticing daydream.
Until the night he kissed her. And the rest.
Lou shook herself back to the moment.
Ensuring Sharni was close wasn’t the problem. Even Gage wasn’t the problem, although how the hell Lou was expected to spend any amount of time in close proximity to him and not find herself hanging around big old trees in hopes of getting pressed against another of them, Lou did not know.
The real problem was that she didn’t want to be here at all. She was due out of town on tonight’s five pm flight, and surely there was still a way to make that happen. She could deal with this whole debacle from Sydney. Sure, she would need to manage insurance claims and repairs or rebuilds from her city office, but for God’s sake, she’d managed projects in Singapore from there.
But things felt different this time. The world seemed to have tipped a little on its axis. Skye was dying, and while it didn’t change how Lou felt about her, it did change … something. The only desire Lou had ever had in relation to Stone Mountain, at least for the last twenty years, had been to get the hell out of it. Even mention of the name had the power to unsettle her, send creeping goosebumps up her arms, catapult her back to a time and place she couldn’t bear to think about; a place she had parked for some other time.
But now she felt differently, in ways that were hard to explain, even to herself. She wasn’t after some big reconciliation scene with Skye. She didn’t expect the two of them could be civil to each other for very long, let alone lay their shit to rest before Skye was, but something had definitely changed.
And Lou needed to hang here long enough to work out what it was.
So the plan, such as it was, seemed to require her to stay a few days right now. Sort the house, the insurance, the police investigation and her mother’s treatment plan – such as it wasn’t. Find her mother somewhere more suitable and permanent to live than Bo Westin’s place. Say her goodbyes and finally close the book on Stone Mountain.
Sharni dragged herself to her feet. ‘I’ll go pay,’ she said, waddling to the door.
Lou closed her eyes, trying to let the warm breeze wash away all the confusing thoughts. When she opened them, Gage was standing in front of her. ‘Lou.’ He sounded serious and uncertain. ‘While she’s gone, I have to say something.’
Lou waited, having truly no idea what it might be.
‘About last night …’
Oh dear, sentences that start like that never end well.
Gage kneeled in front of her on the side veranda, as all the folk of Stone Mountain ambled by, going about their business, barely registering Gage Westin kneeling in front of Lou Samuels like it happened every day. ‘I shouldn’t have done that, and I’m so sorry I made things awkward between us. It was just –’
‘Just what?’ Lou’s voice sounded breathy and far too interested. She wished she had a single ounce of Skye’s skills with men.
‘When I saw you in that alley, it was all I could think about. Twenty years ago, same place. From the second I saw you, I wanted to do that again.’ He picked up Lou’s hands and ran them across his cheeks, which were scratchy with stubble. He took a deep breath and looked into her eyes. ‘But I promise, Lou, if you come and stay, I’ll leave you alone.’
Good, her brain said primly.
Bad, her heart and something lower and less ladylike snapped.
‘Thanks, Gage,’ Lou said finally. She studied his face – hot eyes boring into her; full, wild mouth tightening into a hard line so different from the lush, sensuous thing that had assaulted her the night before. ‘It’s a really generous offer. I’d love to come and stay.’
Lou and Sharni were sitting by Skye’s bed, waiting.
‘What time did they say?’ Skye asked for the fifth time in the last half-hour. She was sitting up, and Lou noticed she had applied a little lipstick and mascara as soon as the tubes had been removed. Not much, just enough to take the pallor away but ensure she still looked duly sick and vulnerable.
Lou glanced at her watch, almost as impatient as Skye. ‘Four thirty,’ she said, working hard to clench her jaw. ‘It’s only four twenty-five.’
They all went back to watching the little television that hung above Skye’s bed. They’d struggled to make conversation for a few minutes at the beginning of the visit before giving up and giving in to reruns of Sale of the Century. Programming came slow to Stone Mountain.
‘Who wrote the seminal popular text on gravity and cosmology, A Brief History of Time?’
‘Stephen Hawking.’ Skye’s voice was low and hoarse and Lou was sure she had been sneaking out for cigarettes, despite the stern warnings Dr O’Brien had given her during her visit a couple of hours before.
‘Stephen Hawking,’ the compere echoed after no buzzers sounded.
Sharni shook her head. ‘How do you know them all?’
Skye tapped her temple. ‘Never forget a single thing I ever see or hear,’ she declared.
Except birthdays, school concerts and your own name if you’re high enough, Lou thought uncharitably. But she didn’t say it. She didn’t say anything.
‘In which year was Gough Whitlam elected Prime Minister of Australia?’ the tinny voice from the television whined.
‘Nineteen seventy-two,’ a big cheerful voice boomed from behind the curtain, as a body that matched the voice perfectly stepped through. ‘A great year, so my mum tells me – year I was born. Although she wasn’t happy about how it all ended up for poor old Gough.’
Lou assessed the newcomer. He was very tall, leaving Lou to wonder yet again whether there was one of those height barriers at the entry to this town, like the kind they have for kids’ rides at the country show; a little cartoon character holding up a hand and saying, ‘You have to be this tall to ride.’ Well, it must be invisible and she had somehow missed it, because she was the only genuinely short person she had ever seen in Stone Mountain.
This latest giant was heavily muscled, with curly brown hair and a square, open face. He stood straight and strong and carried an air of satisfaction, as though the last forty-two years had treated him well and given him no cause for bitterness or regret. He greeted the three women with a huge smile, revealing dimples that made it acceptable to use the term ‘boyishly handsome’. His light blue uniform fitted well where it touched, showing off his heavy arms and muscled legs. A firearm sat in a holster on his hip, but he carried a large bunch of Asiatic lilies in his arms.
‘Well hello, stranger,’ Skye drawled from the bed.
‘Hello indeed,’ Sharni muttered, looking the cop up and down appreciatively.
Lou stood up and held out her hand, to try to distinguish herself from the drooling women with whom she was keeping company. ‘Sergeant Brooks, I assume?’
‘The very same,’ the Big Friendly Giant boomed, passing the flowers to Sharni. ‘You think you could rustle up a vase for these, lovely?’ He eyed Sharni with the same naked appreciation she had afforded him. ‘They’re for you, Mrs Samuels,’ he said, winking at her. ‘Hoping you feel better soon.’
‘Why thank you, honey.’ Skye was grinning so hard her cheeks were turning pink. ‘They’re lovely. I didn’t know they were going to be sending you over here.’
Oh God, how many times had this cop interrogated Skye?
‘Mind if I sit?’ He gestured to the spare seat on the other side of the bed.
‘Be my guest, darlin’,’ Skye gushed.
Lou wanted to throw something at her mother. Had she no idea this was the one they’d sent to interview her about the fire? He was not an ally, despite all the bonhomie and flowers. He was, to use one of Skye’s favourite sayings, ‘with the pigs’.
An hour later, Lou wasn’t so sure. Sergeant Brooks – Mick, as he had insisted they call him – had covered a wide range of topics in his open, rambling way, from the local high school football competition to the drought to the state of health care in the nation. And he still hadn’t touched upon the fire.
Of course, he had spent a good proportion of the time chatting almost directly to Sharni. But he was so charming, with all his anecdotal tangents about being a cop, and about Goonabarraga, the neighbouring town he hailed from, that Lou had almost forgotten to be anxious about where he was headed next, and even Skye wasn’t annoyed to be playing second fiddle to Sharni.
Finally, he carefully settled the empty cup in which Sharni had fixed him tea on the side table, extracted a tiny notebook from his breast pocket, and dragged his chair around a little to face Skye directly. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I guess I had better stop gasbagging and get this show on the road.’
Lou’s body tensed, the lawyer in her leaping to attention and shuffling her mental papers. ‘Er, Mick, I should let you know I am also here in the capacity of legal representative.’ Sharni blushed and Skye looked like someone had passed wind. Lou wanted to scream at the unfairness; it wasn’t as though Skye hadn’t been perfectly happy to have Lou bail her out a dozen times before.
‘Of course.’ Mick nodded enthusiastically. ‘No problem.’ He winked at Skye in a way which managed to look jovial rather than sleazy. ‘Handy to have one in the family, eh, Mrs Samuels?’
Skye covered her irritated scowl at his continued use of her grown-up name with a small smile. ‘I’ve told you dozens of times it’s fine to call me Skye, Mick.’
‘Well, I sure do appreciate that, Mrs Samuels,’ the jolly giant said. ‘But it wouldn’t be right.’ He shook his head, as though considering. ‘Nope, don’t think I could do it, doesn’t seem respectful.’ But the smile he gave her was so full of genuine warmth the women liked him all the more for it.
‘Well, alright then,’ Skye said graciously, waving a hand at him. ‘Fire away.’
The sergeant cleared his throat. ‘Now, Mrs Samuels, I’m going to start right from the beginning, that okay with you?’
Skye nodded and smiled, but Lou noticed her knuckles were white where she gripped the top of the sheet.
‘Where were you when the fire broke out?’ The sergeant’s voice was slow and smooth.
Skye pouted like she was struggling to remember. ‘In the bedroom, I guess,’ she said, reaching over to the bedside table for her water. ‘I didn’t know about it till I came to here.’ She gestured to the hospital walls. ‘Figured I musta dropped a butt on the way to bed.’
Mick nodded encouragingly. ‘That was a lucky escape.’
Skye nodded vigorously.
‘Do you remember what time you …’ he paused delicately, ‘… went to bed?’
Skye sniffed. ‘I … er …’ She glanced quickly over at Lou, who was working hard to keep her face neutral. ‘I had some pain, and so I needed to take some pills.’ She flapped a hand, and Lou knew she would hate referencing her illness; her mother had always had the constitution of an ox, and been proud of it. ‘Sometimes they make me feel a little woozy, so I lie down.’ She sniffed and reached to the bedside table to extract a tissue. ‘Musta got the dose wrong. But I do remember the time because the last late-night rerun of Wife Swap had just ended. So about twelve fifteen I guess.’
Twelve fifteen. About the same time Lou had been pinned to the tree refamiliarising herself with Gage’s mouth. The thought sent a wave of hot guilt through her, but she wasn’t sure whether it was at the thought of kissing Gage, or doing that while her mother OD’d in a burning house. She slapped it away.
‘Uh-huh.’ Mick was scratching in his little pad. ‘And you say you think you might have left a cigarette burning when you went to bed? Had you been smoking in the lounge room?’
‘Yep,’ Skye said, working hard at looking regretful. ‘Terrible habit, Mick, I do hope you never take it up.’
Lou almost choked on her own spit. Skye loved to wax lyrical to anyone who would listen about how smoking was the vice of the gods and they could bury her with her beloved Marlboros.
Mick leaned forwards. ‘Safe so far, Mrs Samuels,’ he said, pointing to his chest. ‘Used to be asthmatic.’ He looked quickly at Sharni. ‘When I was a kid,’ he added quickly. ‘Strong as an ox now.’
Sharni smiled at him like she could well believe it.
Mick grinned in response to Sharni’s brilliant smile and looked down at his notebook. He leaned closer to Skye. ‘Now Mrs Samuels, I hope you don’t mind me asking this, but it might be important once forensics gets back.’
Skye nodded.
‘Was it tobacco you were smoking, or something else?’ Mick smiled in a way that seemed to suggest he was pretty relaxed about these things, even if other folks might be all stiff about them.
Before Lou could instruct her mother not to answer, Skye blurted out: ‘A little of both I think, honey.’
Mick nodded sagely. ‘Weed does burn like a fucker.’ Then he covered his mouth with a huge paw. ‘Pardon my French, Mrs Samuels.’
Skye nodded in delight. ‘Pardoned, m’dear.’ She made a sign near his head that Lou assumed was supposed to be some kind of blessing of absolution.
Mick wrote in his book again. ‘Now, where were we? Oh yeah. Now, again, Mrs Samuels, I do have to ask you this, even though it may seem strange, and it seems like maybe the bedtime toke is probably the culprit, but …’ He paused, scratching his ear. ‘Do you think it’s possible someone lit this fire deliberately?’
Skye stared at the policeman and blinked slowly. ‘You mean …’ She wound a loop of hair around her pinky finger, and lowered her voice. ‘Arson?’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Mick said. ‘We need to check out all possibilities.’
Skye shook her head vehemently. ‘I can’t imagine such a thing happening,’ she said, reaching again for her water as her voice cracked. ‘Not in Stone Mountain.’
The sergeant sighed as though in relief and Lou had the strangest feeling she was watching a pantomime, every actor playing their part without really convincing anyone.
‘Well now, that is a relief and I’m sure you’re probably right,’ Mick agreed good-naturedly as he snapped his book closed. Then he seemed to remember something and flicked it open again. ‘One last thing, Mrs Samuels, before I leave you to your rest. Who was it found you, and called the ambulance?’
A contented smile spread across Skye’s face, transforming it so suddenly and completely Lou almost gasped. ‘My honey,’ she sighed. ‘Bo Westin.’ She grinned at Mick. ‘Least that’s what they told me when I woke up in this shithole.’ She gestured around her, a disgusted frown crinkling her pretty nose. ‘He was a regular hero – dragged me outta there and called the ambulance.’ She smoothed the covers down over her as though they were a prom dress. ‘Even got himself some smoke inhalation in the process and had to be admitted.’ She shook her head. ‘So brave.’
Lou’s stomach heaved as she imagined the scene, and thought about how easily Bo Westin could have been hurt far worse. He was a many time loser, a drunk and a crook, but he was Gage’s father. It was awful to think about Bo making late-night booty calls to her mother, but there were worse things to consider. She would not let herself think about what might have happened if he’d become trapped in that fire; the fire Lou was almost sure her mother had started. A line of sweat broke out on her top lip.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Mick agreed heartily, doing a passable impression of concurring that Bo Westin was indeed a stand-up guy, despite the fact that Lou was fairly certain Sergeant Brooks would probably have had to haul Bo’s arse off to the lockup more than once during his tenure at Stone Mountain.
Skye sighed and flopped back on her pillow in an impressive improvisation of mercy me, I am so beat from all this helping of the law.
Sergeant Brooks took the hint and stood. ‘Well, thank you so much for your help, Mrs Samuels. This was just a first pass, get the facts straight. Once forensics are back, we can chat some more.’
Skye held out her hand to the policeman. ‘I’m sure we will, honey,’ she said, giving his hand a quick squeeze. ‘And thanks again for the flowers.’
‘Holy guacamole,’ Sharni gasped as they returned to the carpark. ‘What did you make of him?’
Lou was distracted, thinking through the questions and trying to discern where the police were at. It had seemed like a fairly standard first interview. Get the responses down for the record, to test against later forensics results, which would take at least a few days.
‘The cop?’ Lou shrugged. ‘He seemed nice. He new?’
‘I reckon,’ Sharni said. ‘Maybe the last coupla years? I haven’t been back much in that time.’ The unspoken words hung in the air between them: ’Cause my folks are pissed that I left wonder boy Matt.
‘But I think I remember him from the Goonabarraga team. He would have been a senior the year we started high school, hey?’
‘Mmm.’ Lou was only half listening, thinking she should stop at the house to check it out on the way out to Sunset Downs. There wasn’t a whole lot else she could do on a Sunday. She’d start with the insurance company and the real estate tomorrow.
‘He’s so big,’ Sharni murmured. ‘Reckon he would have played front row, don’t you?’
Lou’s brain suddenly clicked to Sharni’s mutterings. She stopped in the middle of the carpark and turned to face her. ‘You liked him.’
‘What?’ Sharni frowned, then shook her head. ‘No.’ She shook it again, red curls flying everywhere. ‘I mean, yes, of course. We all liked him, right? So friendly, but so –’
‘Shrewd,’ Lou finished for her, knowing full well the sergeant hadn’t been fooled for a moment by any of her mother’s machinations. She thought about Gage. Shame the same couldn’t be said for him.
‘You like him,’ she repeated, tugging one of Sharni’s curls. ‘Sharni and Mick, sittin’ in a tree …’
Sharni scowled at her as she clicked the little buzzer to open the doors to her mother’s car. Lou knew just how much it had hurt for Sharni to have to go see her parents and ask to stay a while. Lou had told her to go back to Sydney; there was no need for her to stay. But Sharni wouldn’t hear of it. She knew how hard this was for Lou, and Lou also suspected Sharni was in no hurry to get back to Sydney; she was always more herself in Stone Mountain. Gage had said she could stay at Sunset Downs as well, but as Sharni had said, her mother would consider the idea of one of her children staying in town and not staying under her roof akin to eating her own young. Lou, on the other hand, could stay wherever the hell she liked. Mrs Pie had never liked their friendship, even if only due to Lou’s unavoidable association with Skye Samuels.
‘I told you,’ Sharni muttered darkly. ‘I’m off men.’
‘That was two years ago,’ Lou protested, sliding into the little car a lot more comfortably than Sharni. ‘And you didn’t seem so averse to men last night, when you were dancing with Matt.’
‘Oh here we go,’ Sharni said, adjusting her rear-view mirror and grinding the gears mercilessly as she backed out of the carpark. ‘I was waiting for it.’
Lou made a ‘buttoning my lip’ gesture. ‘Hey.’ She reached over and squeezed Sharni’s arm. ‘I’m not here to judge you, sweetie pie.’
‘And you don’t need to,’ Sharni assured her, smiling finally. ‘It was a brain snap. And I’m a harsh enough judge of my own stupid shit.’ She pulled out onto the main street, muttering as she did, ‘What the hell was I thinking?’
The house was now an investigation scene, cordoned off with yellow tape. Sharni stepped past it then held it up for Lou. Neither of them felt any real compunction about their trespass. This was Stone Mountain – no-one would expect them to stay away, yellow tape or not.
Sharni whistled to herself. ‘Goddamn,’ she said, turning a circle to survey the wreckage.
Lou did the same.
Three of four external walls still stood. Well, two and a half, she conceded, examining the smoking remnant of one. Most of the rest of the house had been completely gutted. Few internal walls were intact, and everything inside was charred almost beyond recognition.
Lou stumbled through the wreckage, assailed by charcoal, smoke and burning plastic smells, noticing the odd recognisable thing among all the anonymous blackened lumps. The pewter jug that had stood on the hallstand since forever, a relic from Skye’s mother, lay in a pile of ashes, smudged and oxidised, but not defeated. When Lou had been little, Skye had let her use it to bathe her dolls in the big old bath. The edge of what had once been a blue dress caught on a small breeze and landed on Lou’s foot. She picked it up. It was almost completely destroyed, but she noticed the small flower pattern and remembered the last time she had seen it on her mother. Skye never threw anything out.
Lou stood in the wreckage and expected to feel glad. It was like Skye had said: she should have done it years ago. This place was a mausoleum for the night they could never forget but didn’t want to remember. So yeah, Lou expected to feel relieved, liberated.
Instead, she stood in the wreckage and a raw, wild grief welled up in her. Her nose started to run; her hands trembled and her skin itched. She remembered things; things other than the event that had driven her away, finally and forever. She remembered skipping back here after school, wondering what scheme Skye would greet her with this time. She remembered mad baking adventures, Skye waking her at midnight to make pancakes and drink pink lemonade. High as a kite, Lou knew now. But at the time, she had only known that she had the prettiest, most adventurous, funniest mother. A mother so different from all the other ones at school that they were like creatures from another species. It took some time before Lou realised why her mother was different, before she understood the stares and whispers, understood why she never got invited back to homes like the other girls did; before she wanted what they had.
And then she started to remember the rest – the other thing – and she had to slam her eyes shut and visualise a big red stop sign so she wouldn’t pass out.
Because this place – this steaming wreck – was the epicentre of it all.
Lou stood in what used to be Skye’s home, shaking, and Sharni stepped over and put her arms around her, wrapping Lou up so tight she could barely breathe. ‘It’s okay to feel sad,’ she said, talking into the top of Lou’s hair. ‘I feel sad, too. I loved coming here with you. I remember her too, you know, before it all became real.’
And that was it. Lou never had to say anything, never had to explain or justify. Sharni had been there through it all. She got it. It was okay; just like it was okay for Lou to let it all out now. She turned into Sharni’s generous chest and buried her face in the soft flannelette shirt she was wearing. It smelled so much like comfort and home that all the buttoned-up carefulness that had been holding Lou together fell away. Huge, reckless sobs tore from her throat and made their way into the smoking air, while the rest of her went numb. She sagged against Sharni and let it all go.
She had no idea how much time passed, who might be watching or how she would stop. But eventually, with Sharni patting and soothing her, she did. Her breathing started to return to normal and feeling returned to her limbs.
She stepped away from Sharni and looked at her mutely.
Sharni handed her a tissue. ‘You want to go?’
Lou looked around at the smoking mess of the place she had lived for the first seventeen years of her life. ‘Yep,’ she said, linking arms with her best friend as they made their way to the little blue car. ‘Let’s go.’
‘To Gage’s? You sure?’
Lou thought about her options. She had no doubt Mrs Pie would have her – under sufferance. Mary Moriarty had made it clear that there was room at the Welcome Inn, for those brave enough to accept her barbed hospitality. Then there was Sunset Downs. Lou knew the property well. It adjoined Sharni’s, and the girls had treated it as their own backyard for most of their childhood.
‘Yeah, I’m sure,’ Lou said, thinking the wide spaces might be just the antidote to all the things that ailed her right now.